By Bruce of Stone Marmot
When someone mentions reducing our oil consumption, the almost instantaneous response of many people would be that we have to get rid of SUVs, pickups trucks, and vans and get everyone driving small passenger vehicles. After all, these small passenger vehicles get much more miles per gallon of gas than [...]

By Bruce of Stone Marmot
U. S. government flood insurance causes natural disasters.
How can I say that? Obviously flood insurance can’t cause hurricanes or make a river overflow its banks. But hurricanes and rivers overflowing their banks aren’t in themselves disasters. Only when people are very adversely affected by these events do most [...]

By Sammy of Stone Marmot
A fairy tale: A 30 year old man has been working for the past twelve years, earning an average of about $40,000 a year and living fairly comfortably. He is reasonably happy. One day this man finds a treasure chest. He opens it and finds $10,000,000 in [...]

By Sammy of Stone Marmot
Many people are complaining about the record oil company profits when gas prices are at record highs. If they stopped to think about it, this makes perfect sense, is to be expected, and there is nothing wrong with it. In fact, it shows our economic system is working.
Profits are [...]

By Bruce of Stone Marmot
In a previous rant on this blog, I stated that:
“Capitalism is the most democratic economic system there is, for every time you spend a dollar, or refrain from spending a dollar, you are casting a vote. That is why so many people hate capitalism, because, with capitalism, the world people [...]

By Sammy of Stone Marmot
Global warming can’t be real!
How can I say that? With all the evidence showing long term trends for receding glaciers, increased average global temperature, increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, melting Arctic ice, hundreds of square miles of the Antarctic ice shelves collapsing into the oceans, rapid melting of [...]

By Sammy of Stone Marmot
Many politicians, including (especially?) presidential candidates, talk about providing affordable health insurance. They try to make you think that they are doing this for you. The truth is that they are doing this strictly to benefit the health insurance companies. If they really want to help you and [...]

By Cindy of Stone Marmot
Ben Franklin is claimed to have said that “A penny saved is a penny earned.” This is not true. A penny saved is usually worth more than a penny earned, often a lot more.
In the US, you don’t have to pay federal taxes on any saved money, only [...]

By Cindy of Stone Marmot
The secret to saving money can be summed up in three words: Don’t spend it.
“That is no secret,” you reply. It apparently is to most people. Judging from the behavior of most people, most think the way to save money is to spend every last penny they [...]